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Background: Ingestion of pesticides is a common method of suicide and attempted suicide in China.This retrospective analysis describes the characteristics of individuals who attempted suicide using one of five highly toxic organophosphate pesticides prior to a ban on their use in agriculture in January 2007: methamidophos, parathion, parathion-methyl, monocrotophos and dimecron.Methods: A brief questionnaire was administered to 6,822 individuals who received treatment for attempted suicide in the emergency rooms of 23 general hospitals from December 1998 to December 2006.Among these individuals, 2,840 (41.6%) ingested pesticides.These 2840 individuals include 570 (20.1%) who had used one of the subsequently banned pesticides; 1,428 (50.3%) who had taken other specific pesticides, and 842 (29.6%) who had taken pesticides of unknown type.Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to compare the characteristics of the three groups.A multivariate multinomial logistic regression model was constructed using backward elimination using a probability level for removal from the model of 0.10.Results: Most of the individuals who intentionally ingested pesticides were under 45, female, currently married and agricultural labourers.There were no significant differences between the three groups in age, gender, marital status or history of prior suicide attempt.The multivariate analysis showed that compared to the other pesticides and unknown pesticides groups, those in the banned pesticides group were more likely to be agricultural labourers (AOR=2.4,95% Cl=1.6~3.6; 2.3, 1.4~3.3) and to have died in hospital (2.4, 1.4~4.0; 2.9, 1.6~5.1).In addition, those in the banned pesticide group were less likely than those in the other pesticide group to have made the attempt in the presence of others (0.7, 0.6~0.9), and more likely than those in the unknown pesticides group to have a longer post-attempt hospitalization (2.3, 1.7~3.0).Conclusion: Individuals who intentionally ingested one of the five subsequently banned organophosphate pesticides were more likely than those who took other types of pesticides to be agricultural labourers, to be hospitalized longer and to die due to the ingestion.The higher case-fatality of those who attempted suicide using one of the banned pesticides suggest that the current restrictions on these substances might lead to a reduction in the overall case fatality of pesticide ingestion in China.